


a little bit of tender mercy

by godtrashed



Series: emerge, transformed [3]
Category: Law Abiding Citizen (Polygon), Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: Dissociation, Identity Crises, M/M, Post-Canon, Stress Relief (Mountain Dew)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 13:37:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11510520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godtrashed/pseuds/godtrashed
Summary: or, 'WikiHow to Cheer Up Your Boyfriend.'





	a little bit of tender mercy

**Author's Note:**

> there wasn't going to be a sequel but then i experienced one emotion too many about russ frushtick's oc russ frushtick and that was kind of the end of that. full of regret that of all the long-running polygon video series that exist, i latched onto the one with six episodes and a fairly definitive conclusion.
> 
> title is from 'absolute lithops effect' by the mountain goats. if you want to read along with doug's new favourite webcomic, it's [here](http://www.wikihow.com/Cheer-Up-Your-Boyfriend). also, yes, i do in fact know the difference between anime and manga.

Ostensibly, Russ has his own place. Not a _good_ place, Doug can all too easily guess. Starter salaries in Hell are frankly not what they used to be. But he does at least have a bedsit, maybe even a studio, which begs the question of why he is spending so many nights on Doug’s couch.

Russ mumbles something in his sleep, kicks away the fleecy red blanket he’s co-opted. It’s not even a _comfortable_ couch. Whatever mattress he has at home can’t be worse than this.

He’s inscrutable -- perhaps more now than he ever was before. It’s one thing to throw yourself into a volcano for reasons Doug still can’t entirely parse; it’s quite another to show up a week later on your partner-in-crime’s doorstep, horned and tailed and unsteady on your feet. And then -- well. Then they ended up _extremely_ naked, Russ pouring himself into Doug’s lap, and one thing rather led to another, and now Doug seems to have a semi-permanent houseguest who sleeps all the time and speaks when spoken to, if at all. It’s not so much ‘another thing’ as it is another species entirely. 

It isn’t that he’s complaining. Far from it; it’s good, even reassuring, to be able to come to the lounge when he wakes in the night, drink in the sight of Russ alive and transformed and snoring quietly on the couch. No, he’s not complaining. He’s just…

“Doug?”

Russ isn’t sitting up, not quite, but he’s there on the edge of it, blinking and leaning up on his elbows, dark eyes catching the dancing lights of the router. “What’s going on?” he asks, groggily. “Was I talking?”

He’s _concerned._ That’s what it is. No one in the world or under it has ever been as important as Russ, and here he is, in Hell, on Doug’s couch, with no explanation and nothing remotely resembling delight.

“No, no, Russell,” he says, voice soft. He could move closer. He could. “I was just going to -- to get a glass of water. Go back to sleep, Russ.”

“I’m awake,” he protests, uniquely unconvincing. His eyes are already fluttering shut.

“Shh, pumpkin,” whispers Doug, and watches from the doorway as Russ settles uneasily back onto the cushions. “You need your rest.”

He doesn’t get a glass of water. He doesn’t really sleep, either. He clicks around online for a while, until the glare of the monitor hurts his head, and then he just sprawls in bed and lets himself orbit sleep like a planet around a sun. It’s almost the same. There’s an element of drift. He drags himself out of bed when he hears Russ moving, making coffee, before what passes for day has even begun to break.

* * *

Russ goes to work during the day, long-limbed and awkward in an ill-fitting suit. Doug is supposed to be monitoring humans’ incognito searches, flagging new candidates for the personalised damnation scheme that worked so well on Russell. He’s not, of course; it’s one of the fringe benefits of working from home, not having your boss constantly up in your business. It makes it that much easier to keep his own incognito window open all afternoon, browsing, trying to make Bing understand his concerns.

(It was a few days before Russ re-emerged that he asked it _how to summon a human._ It didn’t know. Hell has a fun knack for mandating the worst in new technologies.)

 _What does it mean if a friend is staying on your couch_ turns up a lot of results about homelessness, or about being exploited, or about staying friends with an ex. All of it is useless; Doug has never had an ex in his life, and by no means does he intend to acquire one. He tries again, cautiously: _what does it mean if your crush is staying on your couch?_ It’s a big old mess of human romantic advice, contradicting itself, giving him nothing. Whichever demon invented dating is presumably sitting pretty in an executive office by now, and here is Doug, trying to make sense of a system built to be nonsensical, like he isn’t a being of deepest darkness with no time for mortal frailty.

It is with a great deal of trepidation that he amends _crush_ to _boyfriend_.

Ten distinct articles about adulterous break-ups later, he emerges haggard and tired from his bedroom and makes a beeline for the Mountain Dew. He is none the wiser. Russell will be home in the next hour, and he will stay on the couch until he drifts off to sleep, and Doug will still have no idea what to say.

The next day, he changes tack: _what to do when your boyfriend is sad._ The first result is an extensive list of suggested approaches -- conversations to have, activities to attempt, the whole shebang. Admittedly it is illustrated with what looks like off-brand anime, but who is Doug to judge internet user Wikihow’s cast of original characters? Humans are going to human, as a wise man once said. And if this bizarre freeform webcomic has anything resembling a good idea for helping Russ -- well, Doug is not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Russell,” he calls, more out of habit than anything else, as he hears the door creak open and click shut. “Russell, you’re just in time -- I’ve made your favourite treat.”

Russ walks into the kitchen like the floor is land mines. “You cooked?” he asks, and if Doug weren’t making such an effort, he thinks he’d be insulted.

“Lo mein, Russ!” he exclaims instead, and gestures to the countertop with his oven-gloved hand. He didn’t cook. Doug lived on ready-meals and Cheetos long before Russ, and he has no intention of changing his ways at this juncture. Fortunately, Hell has a pretty great selection of takeout joints, and Doug has a flair for design that translates well into plating up a dish. It looks _delicious_. Russ is looking at him with no small amount of apprehension. “Lo mein!” he repeats. “Remember the lo mein, Russell? In the market, back in Hong Kong--”

“Wow,” says Russ, and rubs the back of his neck. “Doug, that’s… that’s a good gift. Thoughtful. Uh. Thank you.”

“Oh,” Doug says, and feels himself grinning, swelling with pride. “You’re _welcome,_ Russell, of course. You see, the nature of our, ah, _interactions_ may have changed, but there’s so much I can still offer you! A good meal, or a fun day out, or -- whatever you like, Russ.” _Say you’re there for him,_ said the Wikihow animes. Maybe he wasn’t meant to bundle two ideas into one super-idea, like a fun candy cane of quality time, but Doug figures it’s good to double down. “I want you to be happy.”

Russ blinks, owl-eyed. “Am I unhappy?” he asks, and all Doug can do is blink back at him, wondering if maybe he misheard.

“You…” He hears the word creak its way out of his throat, trying to sustain itself for long enough that he can put together a thought. “You don’t _seem_ happy, Russell.”

“Huh.” Russ frowns, just faintly. Little lines cut deeper at the corners of his mouth. “I don’t know. Everything’s been… it’s been a lot to adjust to. Maybe I’m just tired.”

“You’re _tired_ ,” Doug agrees, with more desperation than is seemly on a demon. “That’s it, Russell. You go sit down, okay? We can eat the lo mein, maybe watch a movie -- what’s your favourite movie, Russ? We can have a movie night. Just a real chill hang.”

“You should pick the movie,” says Russ. He takes his bowl of lo mein from the countertop, fishes chopsticks out of the drawer. “You cooked, so you get to choose.” Does he have a favourite movie? Doug didn’t ever see a TV in his apartment, that airless box in Los Santos where he suffocated quietly for years and years; maybe he’s not a movie kind of guy. But then what did he do all day on weekends, saving everything he earned towards a vacation that never came?

Doug puts on _Jupiter Ascending._ Russ watches intently, cross-legged on the couch, working steadily through his lo mein; he laughs when Eddie Redmayne starts whisper-yelling in his shirtless cape, and looks a little startled by the way he sounds. Sure, Doug’s eyes get a little shiny when they kiss in the sky at the end, but Russ doesn’t give him any stick for it. “That was a fun movie, Doug,” is all he says, and all Doug can manage is a nod.

* * *

_Be active together,_ suggests Wikihow, but Doug vetoes that one right off the bat. Projecting his consciousness into Russ’s soul for the purpose of wreaking havoc on the mortal realm is all well and good, but jogging is simply unconscionable. The animes look to be having a good time with it, which is really just a black mark against all their remaining advice; anyone who genuinely enjoys jogging _deserves_ to be suffering in Hell, and for once, Doug is not trying to encourage that sort of behaviour.

In another panel, the animes seem to be labouring under the delusion that board games are good. Another strike against them. Russ barely even plays the _good_ kind of game, the kind you play with a console; he tops out at Bejeweled by his own admission. And then there’s _spending time with friends --_ which, sure, Doug has those. Eduardo over at the Styx office is a good buddy, and there’s a telecommuter Skype chat he shares with a bunch of mid-ranking coworkers; sometimes they get together for baseball on weekends. Whether Russ would be down to join them or not is its own question. Certainly Doug has never seenhim even watch a sport, never mind attempt to participate.

“Russell,” he asks, peering around the doorframe into the lounge. Russ is reading, something well-thumbed and battered open in his lap _._ “Do you play baseball, Russell?”

Russ looks up, frowning. “When I was a kid,” he says, “sure. Do _you_ play baseball?”

“Here and there, Russ,” says Doug, and waves a hand. “Now and then. Did you enjoy your baseball games, or…?”

“I mean, I was always kind of bad at it.” Russ shrugs. “I don’t know if I really _enjoyed_ it, but -- I don’t think I hated it, either? It just sort of happened to me.”

The more Doug thinks back to the Los Santos apartment, the more certain he is that there was almost nothing in it. A bed, with neutral sheets; a couch, with cushions that barely looked used. A gleaming kitchenette, and a bathroom that shone unrelentingly white under the striplight in the ceiling. It was, he remembers, mostly black and white, or at least grey and beige. A few posters on the wall opposite his computer, and nothing more. “What _do_ you enjoy, Russell?” he asks. “Travel, sure, but what do you do when you’re closer to home? What’s _fun_ for you?”

Russ looks like he’s been shoved onstage to an audience he wasn’t expecting. “Uh,” he says, and spills a nervous laugh. “I don’t know. I guess I’m a pretty serious person -- even when I was a kid, I never really did a whole lot outside of school--”

“But what about _now_?” Doug crosses the threshold to the lounge. “Isn’t there anything at all that delights you?”

It could only be his imagination, that little twitch at the corner of Russ’s eye. It could be nothing at all.

“Killing,” says Russ, and all of a sudden his tone is completely flat. He holds Doug’s gaze the way he never quite has before. “Okay? All the killing and burning and -- and property damage we did. That delighted me. That was maybe the only thing that ever did.”

“Well, why didn’t you _say_ so?” Doug tries to smile, bracing, encouraging. “If you want to go trash some buildings, that’s hardly a challenge at all anymore, Russell -- this is Hell, we’ve got simulations for that--”

“I was trying to be a good person, Doug.” Russ closes his book -- it’s one of the Brontes, though he sets it to one side before Doug can get a proper look. “I tried _really hard_. I had a normal job, and a normal apartment, and all the stuff you’re supposed to have, and I was going to keep having those things, and then I guess I was going to die? Except you showed up and you ruined it.”

“Mmm, well, realistically speaking you would’ve cracked sooner rather than later, Russell--”

“It was _amazing_ ,” says Russ, very seriously, and the rest of the thought sticks in Doug’s throat. “And now I’m a demon, and I feel like maybe I was always _meant_ to be a demon, and that’s amazing too. And honestly, Doug? I’m really freaked out.”

“Why?” he asks; there’s something almost pleading in his voice, and he wishes there weren’t. “Talk to me, Russ. What’s freaking your bean?”

But it’s gone, whatever it was, whatever invited it out to chat. Russ looks down at the carpet, catching his lip between his teeth, flinching as he remembers too late that they’re sharp. “I,” he says, and swallows. “I gotta go. I’ll, uh -- I’ll get takeout for dinner, okay?”

And just like that, he’s on his feet and out the door. The way it shuts behind him feels awful, final the way his last approach to the lava felt final; for a minute, and then another, Doug doesn’t have words.

 _Know when he doesn’t want to talk,_ says Wikihow, and presents a picture of a sullen-looking anime boy to illustrate the point. Doug pours out a pint glass of the Dew, and closes the whole stupid incognito window.

* * *

It’s getting perilously late when Doug hears the door; he’s been in his office, clicking fitfully between a mindless flash game and the trashiest clickbait he could find, trying to stave off the dread that’s moved in while Russ has been gone. “Russell?” he says at once, and straightens in his chair. When did it get so dark? “Russ, is that you?”

He appears in the office doorway like -- not a ghost, not really. Like a very tired boy carrying a plastic bag and the weight of the world. “I got tacos,” he says, quietly. “Did you already eat?”

“No,” he says, and stands up, and reaches to take the bag. He doesn’t get it. What he gets instead is Russ’s free hand, gripping his with a strength it definitely never had in the mortal realm. His breath catches in his throat. “No, Russell, I -- I wanted to wait for you.”

Russ makes a sound that isn’t quite a laugh. It isn’t quite a sob, either; not yet.

“Let’s sit down, Russ,” says Doug, and urges him out of the office, onto the couch. He doesn’t even pause to turn on the light. The blanket Russ has been sleeping with is right there -- there’s no way _not_ to tuck it around his shoulders, like a superhero cape. “My poor pumpkin, you’re here now, you’re home. What can I do, Russell? Tell me what will help.”

Russ’s back is very straight; his hands are shaking in his lap. The takeout bag has dropped to the carpet, forgotten. “I’m not a good person, Doug,” he says. The knife-edge of tension in his whisper suggests that if he raises his voice, it will only break apart.

“Russell,” Doug murmurs, and his arm has not quite found its way back from around Russ’s shoulders. “Sweetheart. You don’t _have_ to be.”

“I never stopped trying before.” He closes his eyes, screws them up tight. “I’m -- I’m still really freaking out, Doug, that’s still happening. Every time I try to think about anything it’s like all these alarms start going, like, _really_ loud, and I’m not even sure what’s doing it.” Another sound, louder this time, far closer to a sob than to laughter. “Fuck. Maybe it’s everything. Maybe it’s just -- _me_ , like, everything about who I am--”

And okay, Doug is a demon. Satan is his CEO. His immediate line manager reports directly to Beelzebub. This is not even remotely his usual jam. But he has spent a straight week reading the Wikihow animes and trying to determine what to do, and mercifully, the webcomic anticipated this. _If your boyfriend starts to cry,_ it said, in one of its rare text-only panels, _sit next to him and hug him._ It’s a clear instruction. Doug is great with those.

“It’s okay, Russ,” he says, soft, as Russ’s shoulders start to shake. “You’re okay. I love you very much.”

“The tacos aren’t even good, Doug,” says Russ, and presses his face against Doug’s shoulder. His cheeks are already wet. “I started eating mine when I was walking back, and it was gross, it was just a really shitty taco. I don’t know where the good taco places are anymore -- I couldn’t even get tacos right, and you were _waiting_ \--”

Doug shushes him, croons nothing that means anything into his ear, lets him cry himself out. He can stroke Russ’s back, comb out his hair with his fingers, and wait for the worst of the tremors to subside. It shouldn’t feel so strange, or so striking. He’s been inside Russ’s brain, hacking its weird squishy machinery to make those spindly arms perform impossible feats of strength. More to the point, they literally boned down, like, two weeks ago if that. Having Russ in his arms should matter so much less than any of the things they’ve already done.

“I love you very much,” he repeats, when Russ’s snuffling breaths have begun to even out. “More than tacos, Russell. You’re everything to me, and we’re going to figure this out together. We’ve done worse, haven’t we?”

He doesn’t lift his head -- but he does laugh, the nervous giggle that Doug fell for way back when. “I guess we have,” he agrees, and his voice is raw, but the rawness is real; it’s _Russ,_ not the impassable wall of who Russ thinks he should be. Doug could kiss him for it. Instead, he lets gravity bear them down to lie together on the couch, and when Russ snuggles in against his side it’s almost, almost better than kissing.

“You got the tacos from the place by your office,” says Doug, at some length. “Right?”

Russ hums his assent, and the vibration of it sings against Doug’s skin.

“Ah,” says Doug. “That would explain the grossness. It’s all right, Russell -- you weren’t to know. We’ll order in from the place down the street, okay?”

“If it’s down the street then we could walk,” Russ says -- a little less unsteady, now. “I’m still wearing shoes. I can go.”

“Mm, well.” Doug can’t stop smiling. Nobody warns you about this, when you’re a demon; there’s so much smiling involved in loving someone other than yourself, in between the Mountain Dew and the surreptitious Bing expeditions into humanity’s collective romantic nightmares. It doesn’t even feel like work. Imagine that. “If you go, then you won’t be _here_. And frankly, Russ, I much prefer it when you’re here. Don’t you?”

He knows the answer. He’s known the answer since the first time Russ came straight to the apartment from work. When Russ says it, though, it’s like he’s found something new and extraordinary that he never even dreamed of discovering. “Yeah,” he says, and lifts his head just enough to meet Doug’s eyes. He looks wretched. He looks like everything Doug has ever wanted. “Yeah, I do.”

* * *

Russ abandons the couch that night, in favour of fifty per cent of the bed. An equal share, they agreed, except that ten minutes into their gentlemen’s agreement, Russ is already using Doug’s chest as a pillow.

It’s fine, Doug decides, caught between giddy and sleepy as Russ’s breath ghosts over his skin. It’s better than fine. It’s not as though they’re gentlemen, anyway.


End file.
